A Simulated Pleasure

A poem

I have a friend, a modern type
Who lives for games and movie hype,
Whose thoughts are all the right ones.
I asked him once: what would you say?
If you could take the pain away,
And simulate all pleasure?

He answered that of course it would
Be preferable, and that we should
Be lucky to achieve it.
Perhaps he's right—he often is—
And yet it seems to me that this
Is missing something vital.

For what is sport without the taste
Of sweat? Or walking without haste
In rain if you don't get wet?
Dull and old fashioned I may be;
And each to his own—but to me
Life's joy and pain are one and same.

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